Kenneth W. Warren is a professor of English at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Black and White Strangers: Race and American Literary Realism.
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's…
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is oft…
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); …
Ernest James Gaines was an American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. Four of his wo…
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) bro…
Art Spiegelman is an American cartoonist, editor, and cultural innovator whose work has profoundly influenced the perception of comics as a legitimate art form, blending literary sophistication with e…
Ralph Ellison was a scholar and writer. He was born Ralph Waldo Ellison in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison was best known for his novel Invisible Man, w…
Thomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He mo…
In 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced 'doo-boyz') was born in Massachusetts. He attended Fisk College in Nashville, then earned his BA in 1890 and his MS in 1891 from Harvard. Du Bois …
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the fir…
Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major Norwegian playwright largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama. He is often referred to as the "father of modern drama." Ibsen is held to be the greates…
Phenderson Djéli Clark is the author of the novel A Master of Djinn, and the award-winning and Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon nominated author of the novellas Ring Shout, The Black …
Ling Ma is a writer hailing from Fujian, Utah, and Kansas. She is author of the novel SEVERANCE, and the story collection BLISS MONTAGE. She lives in Chicago with her family.
